Travelling with a MacBook Pro 13" to School

sig wrote:
I'm afraid your previous laptop died for what it was and not the way you treated it. <snip>

FWIW and IMHO, hogwash. 😉 Please note the wink. This comment is meant as a joke and is not to be taken seriously.

I've had very good service with Toshiba, and other laptops while traveling extensively. I think that any laptop will fail if subjected to misuse and abuse. Not saying the OP will do so but many teens and young university students treat their back backs, and contents, with little respect.

I have a SwissGear back back with a padded laptop pocket. This works very well for traveling with my Mac Book Pro. I've been all over the world and this back back has served well in protecting my previous laptops and my current Mac Book Pro.

I can tell you that I transport my MacBook Pro almost every day, and have taken it on lots of plane trips, and it's as reliable as ever, and that goes for the last 3 I owned. The shortest any Mac laptop of mine has lived was 6 years.

I use a backpack with a padded laptop pocket, but I also like to add a cheap neoprene sleeve to that pocket for another layer of padding because I walk a lot and want to absorb the bouncing.

I'm afraid your previous laptop died for what it was and not the way you treated it. I like the Maccase sleeve but there are many others out there that will do the job. You can travel with your MBP either shut down or sleeping. If the latter do make sure it is sleeping first.

If you carry your MBP around campus in an unpadded bag, expect it to be short-lived. Any notebook would be under those circumstances.

Slipping it into a neoprene sleeve before putting it into the unpadded bag will give it very minimal protection — nothing more.

Terfex wrote:
I found this wish claims it can be used inside a normal backpack or on it's own. Anyones' thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

http://www.targus.com/au/product_details.asp?sku=TBS020AU

As one who travels a lot I try to minimize what I need to carry (weight and bulk). I have traveled around the world on business with my Macbook Pro and as I said above, I use a good quality back back designed to carry a laptop. I tried a sleeve inside the back back and found it redundant, bulky, and a waste of time as the back back on its own does the job.

Terfex wrote:
How much would I be looking at to get a backpack like you have mentioned? The other thing is that it must me able to carry about five books, stationary, lunch box as well as the MacBook Pro 13.

http://www.google.com/products?q=swissgearbackpack&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=S bCYTOLBNYjUtQOmlczDDA&sa=X&oi=productresultgroup&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CD8QrQQwAA

You should go into a store and check them out for yourself.